smoothbore gun question

[brawny man]

Many Klatch

Good advice using no patch when the fouling builds up. I have heard others using a card on the top the powder, then a ball and another card on top to make sure the ball stays put. A trail walk sure can get a person thinking on ways they need to improve. Trent has gotten a lot good advice so far.

 

[trent]

thanks for the advice, ive got a lot to learn. trent

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

First off you're shooting too much powder.

I agree 110%! I firmly believe the 70grs FFFg I use in my 62 will do anything I would want it to do.

Now, having burned almost 11-pounds of powder through it in < 2-years, I will tell you my experience is that FFg powder is TWICE as dirty in my bore, with my load, than FFFg powder. And if/when I shoot 'bareball' ... it gets worse.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I would think it would get dirtier!

For FFg to burn completely, you need a good sealing OP wad on top of the powder, particularly in any flintlock.

Provided you have screened your FFg to get rid of any clinkers( larger clumps of powder) the OP wad lets my FFg burn as well as FFFg powder does in the same gun, without the added recoil, and higher chamber pressures. Getting rid of fines by running the powder over a FFFg screen, also helps to even out the SDV, even in these large bore( 20 gauge ) guns, particularly when shooting PRB. Shooting a bare ball provides NO seal to the powder, which leads to inefficient, and incomplete burning of the powder, regardless of what granule size is used. Incomplete burning leads to more residue, and larger pieces of carbon in the residue.

I am not going to argue that some smoothbores shoot some diameter RB bare quite well, and some even shoot them pretty much to the Same POI out of a dirty bore. But to suggest that a bare ball will have the same velocty as that sealed, PRB defies common experience, logic, and testing.

I have used A Bare Ball as a quick reload once to provide a Coup De Grace shot to finish off a dying deer at point blank range. Accuracy was not an issue. Ending the deer's suffering was.( The deer had been shot by another hunter, just after I shot my deer. His deer collapsed near me, and his modern pump shotgun jammed.)

The worst part of shooting any bare ball is that you lead the bore, and each subsequent shot adds more lead to the bore until you reach a point where even a bare ball cannot be put down the barrel. Accuracy goes South with every layer of lead, and gets worse. Now you have a long time cleaning the lead out of your barrel, using lead solvents, and bore brushes, and lots and lots of elbow grease.

In the meanwhile, the gun is OUT of commission. If you shoot a PRB instead, all you have to do to clean it is to flush the bore with water, or alcohol, or any liquid cleaner. A few drying patches later, your gun is good to go.

I have a similar question to one asked a few years back by Ballistic's Expert, and noted author and teacher, Massad Ayoob, of police officers: He wanted to know of any shooting incident where police had to depend on ammo thrown or given to them by a brother officer after running out of their own ammo, whether its was a clip fed pistol, or a revolver using speed loaders. He was wanting to document the case for reloads, using common ammunition, as is the department policy in most of the agencies in the USA.

My question, is how many people here have been able to kill a second deer because of a speed reload, whether its a bare ball, or not? All this talk about eliminating safety steps to load a MLer faster has me wondering if any of this is really helping anyone kill another deer?

 

[Mike Brooks]

My question, is how many people here have been able to kill a second deer because of a speed reload, whether its a bare ball, or not? All this talk about eliminating safety steps to load a MLer faster has me wondering if any of this is really helping anyone kill another deer?

I have never needed a quick second shot. I have killed most of my deer with a .62 fowler loaded with 60gr 2ff and bare balled. I don't believe I ever shot farther than 50 or 60 yards. That slow moving ball nearly always put a deer down on the spot.
Bare ball you say? Yep, couldn't get that gun to shoot anything else. It was quite accurate using no patch.Excessive leading wasn't a problem, but fowling could be. After 50 or 60 shots (depending on the weather/humidity) I'd have to pour a slug of water down the barrel and slosh it around then dry it out before I could carry on....sure was a dirty gun to shoot! Black from head to toe after a day's shoot.
Back to the problem at hand. If I had a muzzleloading gun to shoot I'd give Swiss powder a whirl, I've been using it in my Rolling block and '74 Sharps with great success. Very clean burning stuff. Shutzen isn't bad either, I believe it shoots cleaner than Goex also, but not as clean as Swiss.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Have you tried screening your FFg GOEX? I found that when I got rid of the clinkers, and the fines, that it burned much cleaner, more consistently, and left no more residue than when I shoot FFFg Goex. The new Goex, made in the new plant in Louisianna,seems to also be Cleaner powder, and better sized at the factory. When we screened a can from a new batch, we got less than 1/2 Tsp. of fines in the powder, compared to 3 oz of FFFg, and 1 oz of FFFFg in some older powder we had.

I also found that using an OP wad increased the chamber pressure, and delayed the movement of the PRB( in my gun) long enough to complete burning.

All this came about because of comments made by some other shooters, in diffirent venues, so, my brother brought his powder screener from Graf & Sons with him when we met a Friendship, we bought some Swiss powder to try, and some more Goex, as we were both running short on our supplies, and then we came home here and screened a couple of cans of powder. He took his Swiss powder home, and has been testing it alongside Goex FFFg in his .40 caliber rifle, and running comparative tests on a Chronograph. Screening both brands of powder( Swiss had fewer "fines"), he found the residue to be the same in both powders. Shooting without an OP wad, he found the swiss powder to give faster velocities( which we expected). However, when he use an OP wad with both powders, the difference in Velocity between the Goex and the Swiss narrowed considerably- down to less than 100 fps. With the OP wad, both powders shot just as clean.

He plans to run the test again, using a wonderlube, instead of a liquid lube. He thought he might have biased his testing of the Goex by using patches that were too damp, and that might account for some of the difference in velocity when he didn't use the OP wad for the base line testing. He said the SDV for both powders dropped when he used the OP wads, indicating that use of an OP wad was beneficial regardless of whether you choose Swiss or Goex powders to shoot.

I am wanting to do that similar kind of test with the new " Cartridge Grade" Goex powder, which I am told is FFFg powder that has been tumbled or rolled to give the granules a more consistent size.

I find your point about shooting the bare ball interesting, in that you were able to continue to shoot bare balls for many shots accurately, without cleaning. That has not been my experience, nor my observation of other shooters using bare balls.

May I ask the bore diameter of the gun you shoot, and the diameter of the balls you shoot? Do you change choice of diameter of balls as the fouling builds in the gun?

I am trying to figure out why I have seen guys in my club fighting to pull balls from their smoothbores that got stuck half way down the barrel when they were shooting the balls bare. One of the shooters claimed he had forgotten to blow down the barrel to soften the fouling, and that is why his ball was stuck. Are you perhaps blowing down the barrel to soften the fouling, too?

I have seen more stuck balls in the cold weather shooting in our Falls, and winters, than in the Hot, Humid days of August, when we hold our club's annual Rendezvous. Perhaps that has something to do with fouling build up? Any ideas?

 

[Mike Brooks]

Paul, Yes, I always have been and always will be a blower. :haha: I believe that's part of the reason I've always been able to load indefinitely. And yes, during the winter and dryer times of the year loading becomes more difficult for lots of folks and it's all due to less humidity and dryer fouling is the result. I blow more when it's dry.
My old fowler had a light weight Gostomski barrel on it that was .620 and I shot a .600 ball. As I said, blowing probably helped keep me loading. Every once in a while I'd get one stuck for a bit and have to pound down the ball with the rod against a handy tree...... :shocked2:
I've also always been a ram rod bouncer...this probably has always helped my fouling as I'm compressing my powder and getting a cleaner burn.
I have to admit I havn't been shooting any Goex sine about 1998 or so. No longer available in this area. I'm shooting Swiss, Shutzen and a newer lot of Elephant that was made in 2001. All of these seem to work better than the Goex I used to use.

 

[Mike Brooks]

Hey, I know blowing down the barrel is considered the most dangerous thing you can do these days, but it works. I have recently come across a couple period references for blowing down the barrel to keep fouling soft. The old timers did it too! :wink:

 

[ronrryan]

I confess to being a "blower" and think it helps. I was introduced to flintlocks by a very experienced shooter who had been to about evry rendezvous and rifle frolic available over the years, he always shot out of the bag, had first rate guns (Frank House, etc)and was a dead offhand shot. He blew. In recent years he told me it was now prohibited in many matches. I do not shoot matches, and will blow merrily on. I think I know when my gun has gone off. Good smoke, Ron in FL

 

[paulvallandigham]

We stopped letting club members "blow " down their barrels at public Demonstration after we saw a kid at a local range, blowing down the barrel of a fully loaded, ready to fire, Breechloading gun, out of habit. I also saw a 16 year old shooter blowing down the barrel of his Semi-auto shotgun at a Skeet Range, out of bad habit, and obviously not thinking. The action was closed and he had a live shell in his chamber!

We decided as a club that while we could police each other so as to not be pointing loaded guns at ourselves on our club range, that we needed to be more aware of young members of our audience witnessing our public demonstrations, and not understanding the difference between blowing down the barrel of a single shot, Muzzle loading rifle that has obviously fired its charge, and is therefore safe, from doing this with a pistol, revolver, or breechloading rifle or shotgun.

If we were going to "Preach" that " you never point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy", we decided that we had to teach by good example. That means a damp patch down the barrel to douse embers, and clean out fouling, instead of blowing down the barrel to do both.

I was a " Blower " the first 15 years I shot Muzzleloaders. I only do it out hunting these days, where I know I am not being observed.

Thank you, Mike for answering my questions. It explains much. I have helped other shooters with stuck balls with a small splash of water and a range rod pounded against a post for the covered firing line, to move the ball down onto the powder. Again, that seems to have always happened on colder, drier days.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Not directed to any one particular but what about using a tube to blow down!

Brit.

 

[paulvallandigham]

It might keep the fouling out of your mouth, but you can cup your hand over the muzzle to keep your mouth away from the dirt, too. I suppose if you use a bent hose, so that the gun doesn't point at your face, you serve both purposes.

Blow tubes are used by BP breechloading target shooters to soften the fouling from the breech end.

 

[Cosmoline]

Blowing--ha. REAL men INHALE the smoke and chew the soot!

 

[ronrryan]

Paul, I must confess I never considered the prospect of forming an example for a younger shooter, sort of like blowing over your finger and sticking it into an imaginary holster. I suppose I better look at the matter again. But I will still blow until I make my mind up. Good smoke, Ron in FL

 

[tg]

It is much like relieving yourself when no facilities are present just be carefull where you do it and who is watching, with that in mind it is quite harmless.I would not suggest trying to do both at the same time some Freudian driven left winger would likley make a fuss about it.

 

[RiverRat]

Why wouldn't a thin greased patch keep the fowling soft rather than blowing a gun barrel?

 

[paulvallandigham]

In hot humid weather, all I need IS a greased patch to move the residue down the barrel when I load a PRB. However, when the humidity drops with the temperature, in the Fall, I find the residue cakes too quickly unless I am trying to speed load. I blow down the barrel for that purpose, and then get the next powder charge down, and the PRB down as quickly as possible.

With my new fowler, I am finding that if I grease the bore lightly BEFORE I fire my first shot, that the grease seems to " cook " into the pores of the bore, and the residue is easily moved by just the greased patch I wrap around the ball. I still blow down the barrel to extinguish embers, and clear my vent hole. IN that large bore( 20 gauge) smoothie, the build up of fouling in the barrel does not seem to change the group size as much as it will in a rifled barrel. I notice the same thing when shooting RB out of my 12 gauge.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Yes I too will prepare my gun before setting of or the night before by shooting a well greased wad only and then reload powder and greased OS cards to coat the bore.
Thinking about it, thats what makes the differance maybe! :hmm:

Brit.

 

[John Tice]

Mike I find your description of smoothbore shooting very interesting and I suspect this method was a common way of shooting fowlers historically. After shooting flinters for about 20 years I find this basic simple loading method is the best and is the way I shoot. I also blow down the barrel, but I blow a puff of air into the touch hole and out the muzzle. :haha: I also believe this helps keep fowling down, but it also lessens the chance for a remaining ember in the breech. Keep it simple I say.

 

[musketman]

thanks for the help, my first smoothbore gun!!
just curious is ther an advantage or not to a smoothbore gun? if so why or why not.

Sure there is, you can shoot a patched roundball or shot, it's like having two guns in one... :thumbsup: